


Stolen Angel

by Katherine Gilbert (LFN_Archivist)



Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:01:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LFN_Archivist/pseuds/Katherine%20Gilbert
Summary: This story was originally posted to the LFN Storyboard Archives by Katherine Gilbert.





	Stolen Angel

The dreams were haunting him again--those same, symbolic, almost archetypal, dreams he had been having ever since he had first brought her into Section. They terrified him, but he couldn't deny their symbolic reality. 

There had been changes in them over the years, of course; they were never *exactly* the same. Their essential message, however, remained constant. . . .Michael had abducted an angel and brought her into Hell. 

He had had the first dream the night after Nikita had been brought in, after he had threatened her with cancellation if she didn't obey. In it, he had been lurking underground; he had been hideous and misshapen--dressed in black . . .waiting, watching the sky. 

When she had appeared nearby, she was so suffused with light that she was hard for him to look at; she hurt his dark-adapted eyes. Some part of him, though, had responded to the sight, once his eyes adjusted enough to make out bits of her. . . . She was beautiful. She had huge, feathered wings which held her aloft, away from his grasp. She hadn't looked as though she was capable of imagining the pain and wanton brutality of the place which was his home. 

In that first dream, Michael had felt his heart affected in so many ways by her. The purest of his emotions, though, were awe and nascent devotion. He had been astonished that anything that beautiful and compelling existed anywhere; he had been told his whole life that such wonders were unreal--that they were the delusions of the feeble-minded. Yet here was the evidence before his eyes. The beauty here wasn't simply external, either; it wasn't a snare. He had shaken his head, watching her; he had felt more noble just being near her. 

Those feelings, however, had passed too quickly, as his emotions, in that dream, had taken a sharp downward turn. The love he had felt was overtaken by anger--by fury. Her radiance made his world seem even darker. Why was he allowed to rot here, while creatures like her were free? His rage made him fast. He had sprung from his hiding place, growling, and leapt into the air, catching her by surprise. He had slammed her to the earth beneath him, his feral sounds never ceasing. She was terrified and bewildered, completely unable to comprehend him or the violence he aimed toward her. Ignoring the plea in her eyes, he had ripped off a strip of her clothes and bound her wrists before reaching behind her to her shoulder blades and feeling for her wings. When he found the spot he was looking for, he pulled, savagely ripping her wings from her. Then, as she lay in shock, bleeding, he had carried her down into the Hell he called his home and had flung her into a cell, claiming her for himself. 

Michael groaned, remembering, and hid his eyes, rubbing his temples. He was at home now, still trying to recover from Nikita's latest disavowal of him and his own latest betrayal of her. He had tried sleeping, but the pain in his leg from the bullet wound Jurgen had given him--before he had ended his own life, as well as the pain of his conscience, had made sleep difficult. When it had come, those damned dreams had returned. That first one, almost three and a half years ago, had only been the beginning of a pattern. Over the years, his subconscious had cast himself as the demon who had abducted the angel Nikita many times over. 

He looked back up, still remembering. He had tried to rationalize them, when they began--telling himself that he was giving Nikita a second chance, an opportunity to avoid rotting in jail. After all, despite her denials, she really wasn't that innocent; she had killed a police officer in cold blood. It was only her naiveté' which made her believe that denying her crime could help her. 

His subconscious, though, had always known differently. It had sensed it even in that first meeting; it could tell her . . . otherness from the usual recruits. 

In truth, it was her uniqueness which had led Michael to choose her to begin with. While Madeline had forced him into choosing someone, as an obvious ploy to make him forget his dead wife, his decision to recruit Nikita had been an instinctive one. He had pored over the records of hundreds of possible recruits, flicking past them without much interest. Nikita's, however, had made him pause. 

It was the picture of her that had done it. Just the usual mug shot--certainly nothing glamourous, but it had caught his attention. It wasn't really her physical beauty which had called to him, though, although that had certainly registered with him; it was, instead, the inner light which seemed to shine from her. It called to him, asked to be held and nurtured. . . . Instead, he had brought it into Hell. 

His dreams were almost a subconscious record of the things he had done to her. He could still remember them all vividly. He had woken up shaking, even feeling ill from them more than once; he hadn't yet found a way to handle them. 

He had dreamed that he had killed her several times. In the first of those dreams, her death had been the result of his neglect. It had come after he had taken her--unwittingly--on her first mission. In it, he had ordered her down a dark corridor and had then waited on the other side. When she had emerged, beaten and bleeding, she had collapsed near him--her hand reaching up in a plea for help. . . . He had walked away. 

The first time he had actively killed her came after she had shot a man to save his life. As much as he had tried not to face it, he had known that it was the first life she had ever taken, and she had done it--despite a million reasons not to--to help him. In the dream which had followed that mission, he had ripped off the fledging wings she was sprouting, back-handed her to stop her cries, then held her down, and stabbed a knife through her heart. 

Michael started rubbing his lips. Those wings were the most common element in the dreams. No matter what he did to her, they always grew back. He had had to remove them time and again--trying every method he could think of to stop their regrowth. . . . It never worked. 

Michael had almost prayed so many times for the dreams to stop. . . . They hadn't; in them, instead, he had brutalized her in almost every way possible. . . . He supposed, in that sense, the dreams weren't that different from reality. 

Michael had only recently recovered from the dream he had had soon after he had brought her back into Section--after their one night together. In it—the worst of any of them--he had held her down by those fledging wings and brutally raped her. . . . It was the one time his dreams actually had made him physically ill. 

He knew what it all meant, of course. He understood, logically, that their night together had been mutual and sacred. There was still a part of him, though, which felt--not just that he wasn't worthy of her--but that for her to be with him was an abomination of her soul. 

Michael knew her too well; Nikita still wouldn't take orders which led to needless death. She was still disgusted by Section's methods and rationalizations. She could still fight over principles. . . . Michael had never done any of those things. 

At the same time, though, that he felt himself unworthy of her, he was also viciously possessive of her. Frequently, even when he wasn't willing--didn't feel able--to be with her himself, he would animalistically fight anyone who tried to provide her comfort instead. 

Michael crossed his arms over himself and shook his head. He could be very much like the demon he had cast himself as in his dreams; he had stolen her from the light, and he would keep her as his own no matter what the cost to her. 

Michael had tried to talk himself out of this self image many times. He had told himself that his work--no matter how ugly--was important, that Section was needed. Subconsciously, though, he knew it was a lie; it was just one he had to tell himself to keep going. 

It didn't help his opinion of himself any, either, that he had only recently reabducted Nikita into the dark--brutally beating her to do so. He wanted to believe that it was partly her decision, that it had been done with her full consent, but he knew that was a lie, as well. When he had found her, there had been little of her left; in her fear and isolation on the run, her personality had fragmented. He had seen this, subconsciously, but he had told himself that--if she had been capable of judging fully--she would agree with his logic. He had tried to cast himself, in his mind, as her savior. 

The truth was different, though, as his dream soon after had proved to him. He hadn't brought her back to help her; he had done it to fulfill his own need. He had to have her close, and--he knew--it was this selfish desire which had been the primary motive in returning her to Section. . . . The demon had struck again. 

All of Michael's efforts to fulfill this need had been recently destroyed, however--or so it seemed. In his latest dream, Jurgen's ghost had liberated Michael's angel from her cage, and she had walked away from him, her wings sprouting again--free of his presence. 

He shook his head. Even in death, Jurgen had come between them. Michael's former trainer was at least only half demonic; if not as angelic as Nikita, he had also never allowed himself to become as compromised as his former material had. Michael knew that Jurgen had at least been more worthy of her. 

He sighed, wishing that he had been able to find some way around his recent, devastating actions. His future, as a result of them, was uncertain and tormenting; he didn't know what to do with his dreams, his life, or Nikita. And, as much as he wanted to be worthy of her, he very much doubted his own ability to grow wings.


End file.
